Florida Shooters Network

Any Garand experts here?
I shot my most recently acqured Garand on Saturday and found a problem with it.
While shooting the first clip the bolt locked back and tried to ejected the clip with 4 rounds still on the clip.
I pushed it back in and fired rest of the clip and the empty clip ejected.
On the second clip the partially loaded clip tried to eject again on the 2nd round, 4rd round and then on every round.
Anybody hve any ideas on what I should look for?

I'm assuming the rifle is cleaned well and lubricated? Clip latch spring or the op rod spring could be worn out. They're not expensive to get new.

I had one that was doing the same thing. Replaced both the clip latch spring and the op-rod spring, but that didn't fix it.

I then took it to Bruce Dow who pulled the bullet guide and mic'd the rounded "nose" on the bullet guide - found that it was worn beyond spec. A brand-new-in-the-wrap bullet guide didn't work right either - caused the action to not eject at all. He then installed a "newer" one showing slight wear and it solved the problem.

To clarify - he used a Garand "timing gauge" to see where the timing was off. With the original worn bullet guide, the timing was off in the "premature ejection" end of the sequence. With a brand-new-in-the-wrap bullet guide, the timing was off in the other direction - it wouldn't release the op rod when a clip was inserted. The bullet guide that worked properly was slightly used, just a little wear showing on the "nose". The way he explained it to me was that a new bullet guide should work well if everything else is new also; however, since the rest of the action also showed wear it actually took a slightly worn bullet guide to get everything working in sync.

See the photo at the bottom of Page 107 in Kuleck & McKee "M1 Garand Assembly Guide" - the proper dimension for the lug on the bullet guide is 0.175" - 0.179".

If the simple fixes as suggested by wakkoss don't solve the problem, try another bullet guide. You can save yourself a bunch of trial-and-error fitting if you have access to a Garand timing gauge.

Good luck!!

PS - if you can lay your hands on a Holbrook "thumbsaver" Device, you will be amazed at how much more civilized your Garand becomes!

http://www.dgrguns.com/5-Holbrook-Device.htm

http://www.dgrguns.com/0-main-page-accessories.htm